[thoughtomator]

WTC attack $150+ billion damage and still mounting.

Can we afford not to occupy Iraq?

[bybybill]

you beat me to it, GWB is trying stop more 9/11, and , whatever the cost, it`s cheap

[palmer]

You're right, the 2% of Iraq that we occupy is definitely free of terrorists, except for a couple of truck and car bombers.

[mass55th]

Thank you...my sentiments exactly. Some people just don't seem to understand that if we don't do something now, it will only cost us that much more down the road.

[ChewedGum]

Can we afford not to occupy Iraq?

My sentiments exactly.

Gum

[Destructor]

"WTC attack $150+ billion damage and still mounting. Can we afford not to occupy Iraq?"

Bravo! You beat me to it. Thanks!

[A. Pole]

WTC attack $150+ billion damage and still mounting. Can we afford not to occupy Iraq?

Please, please, tell me what Iraq had to do with WTC attack?

[Iris7]

The Middle East operation will cost many, many times more than a trivial $150 Billion. Notice my thoughts above for how I see things. An office building in New York City more or less is very small potatoes except as atrocity propaganda. Much worse will happen down the road.

[RinaseaofDs]

I agree.

We can also put this in terms of battlefields. If the effect of democratizing Iraq is the funneling of terrorist resources into Iraq, then I prefer Iraq as a battlefield to Manhattan or Seattle.

If the costs do anything, it will be to add impetus to our closing off the funding of these organizations with even more zeal.

If anything this is just going to force us to take a very long look at who our friends are, and what it is they mean to us militarily and economically.

Our relationships with China, France, and Germany are up for new scrutiny.

[boris]

"WTC attack $150+ billion damage and still mounting.
Can we afford not to occupy Iraq?"

The problem is--and has been--that Iraq was down on the list of real targets. The WTC attack was paid for by the Saudis and most of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. Then there is Iran (almost nuclear-armed), Syria, Pakistan--and North Korea.

Personally I still think we should have nuked them all--Mecca and Medina included--and simply put a total embargo on any trade and travel between the West and the Islamic world.

They have oil. We can--with the will and the technology--do without it. We have computers, electrical generators, medicine, aircraft, cars, satellites, and all the other fruits of infidel nations. Let them do without any of this.

I am completely serious. Nuke them back to 700 A.D. and let them return to camels in the desert. No more flight training. No more PhDs in biology (to help them make bio weapons). No more travel--in either direction.

They need US more than we need THEM. Indeed, civilization needs Islam not at all. So let's roll--and be done with it.

Nation-building: pfah. Boots on the ground: idiocy.

And for those who think this too extreme, I have only one response: 9/11/2001. The next one they pull is likely to be worse. Even if we try to win their "hearts and minds".

--Boris

[Cobra64]

I'd skim Iraq's oil revenues to pay the price tag of our playing the sherrif over there.

[TheDon]

Ron is one of the last people that should be listened to regarding foreign affairs.